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After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

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Brownback Declares ‘Day of Restoration’

Gov. Sam Brownback, a certified theocrat, longtime member of the Family, and former roommate of deranged “new apostle” Lou Engle, has issued an official proclamation making Saturday a “Day of Restoration” to coincide with yet another wingnut event, this one called Reign Down. Here’s the proclamation:

TO THE PEOPLE OF KANSAS, GREETINGS:

WHEREAS, the State of Kansas will host the national simulcast of REIGNDOWN USA in Topeka on December 8, 2012, bringing thousands here from across the country; and

WHEREAS, people from across America will join the millions from around the world on TV simulcast live from MacLennan Park, in the heart of America; and

WHEREAS, the first REIGNDOWN celebration was held 2008 in Washington DC, on the Capitol Grounds, introduced by proclamation of the President of the United States of America, with millions participating on site, on TV, and by computer; and

WHEREAS, regional REIGNDOWN events continued until the need was seen for the gathering to be held in the heart of our Nation; and

WHEREAS, many of our families have slid into poverty, endangering out next generation of citizens, our lands are parched by drought, our quality jobs are scarce, business and industry are struggling to expand, and many of our people have fallen into despair; and

WHEREAS, our Nation’s greatest leaders have called on a merciful God for favor during troubled times, such as:

“We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God.” – Abraham Lincoln, 1863.

“The propitious [favorable] smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained.” – George Washington, 1789.

“I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.” – Thomas Jefferson, 1787; and

WHEREAS, we collectively repent of distancing ourselves from God and ask for His mercy on us:

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Sam Brownback, GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF KANSAS, do hereby proclaim December 8th 2012, as a

Day of Restoration

in Kansas and ask every citizen of our state to join in asking a Holy God to bring healing and restoration – help in mending broken lives, bringing peace to our families, our communities, and this land.

The funny part is that this is all based on a “vision” had by a woman in 2005, leading to a big national event calling for God to “move across the nation” and fix all our problems.

In July of 2005, God woke up a 31-year old stay-at-home mom to give her a vision for His people, revealing that He was about to move in a mighty way. His call to humility, prayer, worship, seeking Him with all of our heart, and repentance of our own personal sins was a cry for us to turn back to Him. “I am HERE!” He said. “I never left you! It is time…time to put me back in the center.” He promised that as the Body of Christ gathered together in worship, prayer, and true repentance, He would reign down His blessings and miracles in an unprecedented way. The vision very clearly showed Michael W. Smith leading worship and former President George W. Bush repenting on behalf of the nation, culminating in a movement of God’s hand across America to bring healing, restoration and unprecedented unity and prosperity.

That mom, Shawn-Marie Cole, began to pray. She asked friends, family and countless intercessors to pray, and the vision was confirmed many times over—a nationwide gathering of unity for the Body of Christ was to take place. God continued to show His favor to Shawn-Marie and her father, Walt Kallestad, Senior Pastor of Community Church of Joy in Glendale, Arizona. In November 2007, God indeed called Michael W. Smith to lead worship for the event. In February 2008, Shawn-Marie and Walt were able to meet with President George W. Bush in the White House, where they shared the vision with him and extended the invitation to participate.

On April 26, 2008, from Washington, D.C. to the Capitol steps in Honolulu, every state in our country was represented by participants, and in at least ten other countries around the world, including Canada, Germany, South Africa and the Philippines, as simultaneously we worshiped our Heavenly Father and begged Him to return to the center of our lives and our nation.

Okay. So why didn’t this happen? Where are those “blessings and miracles in an unprecedented way”? You’ve already got tens of thousands of people, maybe hundreds of thousands, praying and repenting and doing all this stuff that was supposedly promised to result “healing, restoration and unprecedented unity and prosperity.” So where is it? Or what’s the magic number that has to be reached before it happens?

Comments

this stuff that was supposedly promised to result “healing, restoration and unprecedented unity and prosperity.” So where is it?

Right here. This is it.

Seriously — “unprecedented” may be a bit of a stretch, but certainly prosperity, healing (whatever that means), and unity? When, in living memory, have we been as united as we are now? When as prosperous?

Read the fine print. It doesn’t say that we’d be moreunited or more prosperous, did it?

If I lived in Kansas, I think I would spend the Official Day of Restoration refinishing an old but lovely piece of furniture, one in sore need of restoration. And I bet the finished product looks better afterwards than before.

Isn’t this a blatant violation of the separation of church and state? We need not ask how they’d feel if Governor Brownback declared December 8th a day to consider the truth of Islam, and come back to our recognition of Allah as the One True God so that He might make the crops grow and the economy flourish. Someone is sure going to sue their ass… and it will be thrown out. But still.

The magic number is 1,734,491 people praying at the exact same time. One more or one less, or if any one of those 1,734,491 people is praying a millisecond off and it doesn’t count. Also it has to be done at 11:32 EST on the second tuesday after three full moon after the spring equinox. And everyone most be rotating counter clockwise at 13.25 degrees a second, or it doesn’t count. Because why should Yahweh care, if the people doing this don’t care enough to get it right?

“The vision very clearly showed Michael W. Smith leading worship and former President George W. Bush repenting on behalf of the nation, culminating in a movement of God’s hand across America to bring healing, restoration and unprecedented unity and prosperity.”

The president should repent on behalf of the nation? As in, ask for forgiveness? Maybe go on an apology tour of some sort?

God is so damned insecure! He’d be willing to help us out of all of our problems through miracles, but his fee fees are hurt cause we don’t pay enough attention to him? What kind of petulant child do these nuts worship?

In the UK, the Restoration is the time at which Charles II was, er, restored to the throne after the rule of Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans, replacing a joyless hatred of Christmas with general licentiusness. Two well-regarded historians have described the Puritans of the Civil War as `right but repulsive’, and the royalist Cavaliers as `wrong but wromantic’ [*].

Here in British Columbia, it should be noted, Cromwell Restoration is a company which repairs flood damage. I don’t think you need to pray for them, a phone call will suffice.

[*] Sellar and Yeatman, the co-authors of the seminal 1066 And All That, which recounts British history as it is remembered long after one has left school. Like Francis Fukuyama years later, this glorious pair identified the End of History, though their choice was the end of World War I, when the U.S.A. became Top Nation (their capitalization).

“….in Kansas and ask every citizen of our state to join in asking a Holy God to bring healing and restoration – help in mending broken lives, bringing peace to our families, our communities, and this land.”

So let me be sure I have this right: Brownback wants to promote health care for all people throughout our land, end the brokenness caused by laws that discriminate against non-traditional weddings, things like that?

Y’know what? I just became a motherfucking believer. Not in GOD–he’s further down on my list than the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. No, I’m believin’ in zombies, the undead. Fucking republicans just keep re-animating. It’s makin’ me crazy.

Would that these prayer rallies actually did something. We could then solve everything with just one solution. It’d make school and work obsolete and we could get on with having more personal life time. Of course, if god is just counting heads, the chinese would bury us with their prayers (unless one or the other country has the right god…).

You don’t get to call (even a non-existant god) something a “petulant child” and use “fee fee”. Is that short for penis like I’ve seen some feminists use (gendered insult) or short for feelings? In either case, it’s infantilizing.

You all scoff, but if it weren’t for all that prayin’ and MIkey Smith’s cheesy Christian pop music Spacepope and Robotoid 12 would have succeeded in their plot to conquer America. Or maybe it was Governor “Name that makes think of a poisonous spider” would have turned into a giant spider and ate Kansas.

This particular “revelation”, this vision, as it is claimed, differs in what respect to all the ones preceding it? You know, all the other ones that failed. Could it be that they just need an extra measure of sincerity and a dash more piety?

Perhaps they should try harder, reach deeper inside until they find satori and magically transform into stuperheroes to make up for the absence of their invisible stupernatural spook. That should most surely work.

I wonder how Shawn-Marie Cole’s living standard is now compared to 7 years ago? Drivng a little better car? Living in a little bigger house? Hubby able to quit his day job?

I always said if I wasn’t a moral person I’d out-Tilton Bob Tilton in the grifter game… Man, just develop a line of patter with some 2-stroke motorcycle noises coming out of your mouth and sit back and watch the “Love Gifts” come pouring in.

“WHEREAS, many of our families have slid into poverty, endangering our next generation of citizens, our lands are parched by drought, our quality jobs are scarce, business and industry are struggling to expand, and many of our people have fallen into despair;…”

“His call to humility, prayer, worship, seeking Him with all of our heart, and repentance of our own personal sins was a cry for us to turn back to Him. “I am HERE!” He said. “I never left you! It is time…time to put me back in the center.””

I think it was Mark Twain who said “I am always wary of those who claim to know God’s will, because I have noticed that it always seems to co-incide with their own.”

“You don’t get to call (even a non-existant god) something a “petulant child” and use “fee fee”. Is that short for penis like I’ve seen some feminists use (gendered insult) or short for feelings? In either case, it’s infantilizing.”

I live in Kansas, we aren’t all fundie nut-jobs, but those of us with working brain cells are grossly outnumbered by the fundies. There is a group of us who are trying to file a lawsuit against Brownstain (some are trying to get Dan Barker involved, but I don’t know if he has committed to anything or not). As a Kansas resident I am sick and tired of Brownback pulling crap like this. He’s easily one of the worst Governors this state has ever had.